Meet Sophie

Hi, I’m Sophie Bradshaw. I grew up in Pembrokeshire in West Wales and always had a love of language. In 1999 I won a place at Cambridge University, graduating with an MA in Linguistics before going on to work in busy publishing houses for over 14 years.

In my publishing career I have worked on both fiction and non-fiction and have edited and advised on everything from historical texts and business books to young adult novels. I have been a professional editor, proofreader, ghostwriter and commissioning editor, but have also worked at a senior management level in an independent publishing house.

After years of running budgets and making key decisions about publishing strategy, I found that I was turning away authors because their manuscripts needed too much work. Books that could have been great were left on the slush pile because there was not enough one-on-one time in house to make them better, and the authors themselves didn’t have the skills of an editor.

In 2017 I launched Publishing Workshop, an editorial mentoring service for authors at all levels. I wanted to be able to take someone’s idea and turn it into a finished book with them, no matter what stage they started at.

It matters to me that I work with you as an author and not just your manuscript. That’s why I take time to get to know my mentoring clients before I work with them, so I can understand their vision for their book and what they want to achieve. For many of my clients, working with me is the difference between getting their book finished and it sitting on a hard drive for 20 years.

I moved to the Cotswolds in 2003, where I still live with my three children, who love books almost as much as I do.